Agenda item

The Committee are to receive a report updating Members on the actions taken since the Cabinet accepted the Committee’s recommendations on housing voids management and temporary accommodation on 22 January 2020.

The Director for Housing and Communities (Deputy Chief Executive), Michelle Howard and the Assistant Director for Housing, Craig Spence, introduced a report updating Members on the actions taken since Cabinet accepted the Committee’s recommendations on housing voids management and temporary accommodation on 22 January 2020.

**At 8.38pm, Cllr Holmes left the meeting and did not return.**

During the presentation the following comments were noted:

·       The Director for Housing and Communities advised Members that a review of the allocations policy had been triggered as the currently policy is not up to date and the current IT systems are not fit for purpose. The review would be completed within the next three months with a formal consultation taking place in which Scrutiny would be invited to be part of the process. It is hoped the new policy and system will go live by March 2022.

·       The Director for Housing and Communities advised Members that by the housing assets, housing options and tenancy services teams working together they had prevented people from losing their homes and avoid the homeless process. For those that did come through the homeless process the properties would be allocated in the correct and sustainable way, which is how the Council have been able to balance their responsibilities around the Afghan scheme alongside the housing register.

·       The Assistant Director for Housing advised members of annual returns via the Local Authority Housing Statistics (LAHS) that allows the Council to benchmark its performance against other social housing landlords locally. In addition, it would be beneficial for the council to look at joining Housemark which benchmarks against other landlords throughout the UK, though there would a cost to this and a consideration would be the need to take into account the resources to undertake the work.

·       The year-to-date void performance to the end of August 2021 was 68.89 days. A considerable amount of work has been completed by Officers on the void process. There have been recent void properties turned around in under 10 days, which provides Officers confidence that the process revision and clarity will enhance performance moving forwards.

·       Melton has a current of stock of 1800 properties of which a large number are the Intensive Housing Management Support (IHMS) properties. Due to the high demand of the housing register it may be necessary to release some of these IHMS properties to general needs.

·       The average time on the waiting list for those in the current priority banding is 18 months to 2 years which is in line with other authorities nationally.

·       There are currently 32 void properties, which is the lowest since March 2021 with 16 properties to be handed back in the next 7-10 days.

The Chair thanked the Director for Housing and Communities and the Assistant Director for Housing for their presentation and asked to pass on her thanks to the teams and contractors who had worked throughout the pandemic.

RESOLVED

1.     Scrutiny NOTED the progress and ongoing work across the Housing Communities directorate to satisfy the recommendations made.